System and method of co-allocating a reservation spanning different compute resources types

ABSTRACT

A system and method of co-allocating resources within a compute environment are disclosed. The method embodiment of the invention comprises receiving a request for a reservation for a first type of resource, analyzing constraints and guarantees associated with the first type of resource, identifying a first group of resources that meet the request for the first type of resource and storing in a first list, receiving a request for a reservation for a second type of resource, analyzing constraints and guarantees associated with the second type of resource, identifying a second group of resources that meet the request for the second type of resource and storing in a second list, calculating a co-allocation parameter between the first group of resources and the second group of resources and reserving resources according to the calculated co-allocation parameter of the first group of resources and the second group of resources. The request may also request exclusivity of the reservation.

PRIORITY CLAIM

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional ApplicationNo. 60/552,653 filed Mar. 13, 2004, the contents of which areincorporated herein by reference. The present application also citespriority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/603,296, filed Aug. 20,2004, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to Attorney Docket Numbers 010-0011,010-0011B, 010-001C, 010-0013, 010-0019, 010-0026, 010-0028 and 010-0030filed on the same day as the present application. The contents of eachof these cases is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to reservations of resources within acompute environment such as a cluster or grid and more specifically to asystem and method of providing a co-allocation reservation spanningdifferent resource types.

2. Introduction

There are challenges in the complex process of managing the consumptionof resources within a compute environment such as a grid, compute farmor cluster of computers. Grid computing may be defined as coordinatedresource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multi-institutionalcollaborations. Many computing projects require much more computationalpower and resources than a single computer may provide. Networkedcomputers with peripheral resources such as printers, scanners, I/Odevices, storage disks, scientific devices and instruments, etc. mayneed to be coordinated and utilized to complete a task. The term computeresource generally refers to computer processors, network bandwidth, andany of these peripheral resources as well. A compute farm may comprise aplurality of computers coordinated for such purposes of handlingInternet traffic. The web search website Google® had a compute farm usedto process its network traffic and Internet searches.

Grid/cluster resource management generally describes the process ofidentifying requirements, matching resources to applications, allocatingthose resources, and scheduling and monitoring grid resources over timein order to run grid applications or jobs submitted to the computeenvironment as efficiently as possible. Each project or job will utilizea different set of resources and thus is typically unique. For example,a job may utilize computer processors and disk space, while another jobmay require a large amount of network bandwidth and a particularoperating system. In addition to the challenge of allocating resourcesfor a particular job or a request for resources, administrators alsohave difficulty obtaining a clear understanding of the resourcesavailable, the current status of the compute environment and availableresources, and real-time competing needs of various users. One aspect ofthis process is the ability to reserve resources for a job. A clustermanager will seek to reserve a set of resources to enable the cluster toprocess a job at a promised quality of service.

General background information on clusters and grids may be found inseveral publications. See, e.g., Grid Resource Management, State of theArt and Future Trends, Jarek Nabrzyski, Jennifer M. Schopf, and JanWeglarz, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004; and Beowulf Cluster Computingwith Linux, edited by William Gropp, Ewing Lusk, and Thomas Sterling,Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003.

It is generally understood herein that the terms grid and cluster areinterchangeable, although they have different connotations. For example,when a grid is referred to as receiving a request for resources and therequest is processed in a particular way, the same method may also applyto other compute environments such as a cluster or a compute farm. Acluster is generally defined as a collection of compute nodes organizedfor accomplishing a task or a set of tasks. In general, a grid willcomprise a plurality of clusters as will be shown in FIG. 1A. Severalgeneral challenges exist when attempting to maximize resources in agrid. First, there are typically multiple layers of grid and clusterschedulers. A grid 100 generally comprises a group of clusters or agroup of networked computers. The definition of a grid is very flexibleand may mean a number of different configurations of computers. Theintroduction here is meant to be general given the variety ofconfigurations that are possible. A grid scheduler 102 communicates witha plurality of cluster schedulers 104A, 104B and 104C. Each of thesecluster schedulers communicates with a respective resource manager 106A,106B or 106C. Each resource manager communicates with a respectiveseries of compute resources shown as nodes 108A, 108B, 108C in cluster110, nodes 108D, 108E, 108F in cluster 112 and nodes 108G, 108H, 108I incluster 114.

Local schedulers (which may refer to either the cluster schedulers 104or the resource managers 106) are closer to the specific resources 108and may not allow grid schedulers 102 direct access to the resources.The grid level scheduler 102 typically does not own or control theactual resources. Therefore, jobs are submitted from the high levelgrid-scheduler 102 to a local set of resources with no more permissionsthat then user would have. This reduces efficiencies and can render thereservation process more difficult.

The heterogeneous nature of the shared compute resources also causes areduction in efficiency. Without dedicated access to a resource, thegrid level scheduler 102 is challenged with the high degree of varianceand unpredictability in the capacity of the resources available for use.Most resources are shared among users and projects and each projectvaries from the other. The performance goals for projects differ. Gridresources are used to improve performance of an application but theresource owners and users have different performance goals: fromoptimizing the performance for a single application to getting the bestsystem throughput or minimizing response time. Local policies may alsoplay a role in performance.

Within a given cluster, there is only a concept of resource managementin space. An administrator can partition a cluster and identify a set ofresources to be dedicated to a particular purpose and another set ofresources can be dedicated to another purpose. In this regard, theresources are reserved in advance to process the job. There is currentlyno ability to identify a set of resources over a time frame for apurpose. By being constrained in space, the nodes 108A, 108B, 108C, ifthey need maintenance or for administrators to perform work orprovisioning on the nodes, have to be taken out of the system,fragmented permanently or partitioned permanently for special purposesor policies. If the administrator wants to dedicate them to particularusers, organizations or groups, the prior art method of resourcemanagement in space causes too much management overhead requiring aconstant adjustment the configuration of the cluster environment andalso losses in efficiency with the fragmentation associated with meetingparticular policies.

To manage the jobs submissions or requests for resources within acluster, a cluster scheduler will employ reservations to insure thatjobs will have the resources necessary for processing. FIG. 1Billustrates a cluster/node diagram for a cluster 124 with nodes 120.Time is along the X axis. An access control list 114 (ACL) to thecluster is static, meaning that the ACL is based on the credentials ofthe person, group, account, class or quality of service making therequest or job submission to the cluster. The ACL 114 determines whatjobs get assigned to the cluster 110 via a reservation 112 shown asspanning into two nodes of the cluster. Either the job can be allocatedto the cluster or it can't and the decision is determined based on whosubmits the job at submission time. The deficiency with this approach isthat there are situations in which organizations would like to makeresources available but only in such a way as to balance or meet certainperformance goals. Particularly, groups may want to establish a constantexpansion factor and make that available to all users or they may wantto make a certain subset of users that are key people in an organizationand want to give them special services but only when their response timedrops below a certain threshold. Given the prior art model, companiesare unable to have the flexibility over their cluster resources.

To improve the management of compute resources, what is needed in theart is a method for a scheduler, such as a grid scheduler, a clusterscheduler or cluster workload management system to manage resources moreefficiently. Furthermore, given the complexity of the clusterenvironment, what is needed is more power and flexibility in thereservations process.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description which follows, and in part will be obvious from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention. Thefeatures and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained bymeans of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out inthe appended claims. These and other features of the present inventionwill become more fully apparent from the following description andappended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention asset forth herein.

The invention has system, method and computer-readable mediaembodiments. The method embodiment of the invention comprises method ofco-allocating resources within a compute environment. The computeenvironment may be a grid, a cluster or some other grouping of computedevices. The method comprises receiving a request for a reservation fora first type of resource and analyzing constraints and guaranteesassociated with the first type of resource. A system practicing theinvention identifies a first group of resources that meet the requestfor the first type of resource and storing in a first list, receives arequest for a reservation for a second type of resource, analyzesconstraints and guarantees associated with the second type of resourceand identifies a second group of resources that meet the request for thesecond type of resource and stores in a second list. Finally, the systemcalculates a co-allocation parameter between the first group ofresources and the second group of resources and reserves resourcesaccording to the calculated co-allocation parameter of the first groupof resources and the second group of resources.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and otheradvantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a moreparticular description of the invention briefly described above will berendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which areillustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawingsdepict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not thereforeto be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will bedescribed and explained with additional specificity and detail throughthe use of the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1B illustrates an access control list which provides access toresources within a compute environment;

FIG. 2A illustrates a plurality of reservations made for computeresources;

FIG. 2B illustrates a plurality of reservations and jobs submittedwithin those reservations;

FIG. 3 illustrates a dynamic access control list;

FIG. 4 illustrates a reservation creation window;

FIG. 5 the co-allocation process;

FIG. 6 illustrates a method aspect of the invention; and

FIG. 7 illustrates another method aspect of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Various embodiments of the invention are discussed in detail below.While specific implementations are discussed, it should be understoodthat this is done for illustration purposes only. A person skilled inthe relevant art will recognize that other components and configurationsmay be used without parting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

The “system” embodiment of the invention may comprise a computing devicethat includes the necessary hardware and software components to enable aworkload manager or a software module performing the steps of theinvention. Such a computing device may include such known hardwareelements as one or more central processors, random access memory (RAM),read-only memory (ROM), storage devices such as hard disks,communication means such as a modem or a card to enable networking withother computing devices, a bus that provides data transmission betweenvarious hardware components, a keyboard, a display, an operating systemand so forth. There is no restriction that the particular systemembodiment of the invention have any specific hardware components andany known or future developed hardware configurations are contemplatedas within the scope of the invention when the computing device operatesas is claimed.

The present invention relates to reservations of resources within thecontext of a compute environment. One example of a compute environmentis a cluster. The cluster may be, for example, a group of computingdevices operated by a hosting facility, a hosting center, a virtualhosting center, a data center, grid and/or utility-based computingenvironments. Every reservation consists of three major components: aset of resources, a timeframe, and an access control list (ACL).Additionally, a reservation may also have a number of optionalattributes controlling its behavior and interaction with other aspectsof scheduling. A reservation's ACL specifies which jobs can use thereservation. Only jobs which meet one or more of a reservation's accesscriteria are allowed to use the reserved resources during thereservation timeframe. The reservation access criteria comprises, in oneexample, at least following: users, groups, accounts, classes, qualityof service (QOS) and job duration. A job may be any venue or end ofconsumption of resource for any broad purpose, whether it be for a batchsystem, direct volume access or other service provisioning.

A workload manager, or scheduler, will govern access to the computeenvironment by receiving requests for reservations of resources andcreating reservations for processing jobs. A workload manager functionsby manipulating five primary, elementary objects. These are jobs, nodes,reservations, QOS structures, and policies. In addition to these,multiple minor elementary objects and composite objects are alsoutilized. These objects are also defined in a scheduling dictionary.

A workload manager may operate on a single computing device or multiplecomputing devices to manage the workload of a compute environment. The“system” embodiment of the invention may comprise a computing devicethat includes the necessary hardware and software components to enable aworkload manager or a software module performing the steps of theinvention. Such a computing device may include such known hardwareelements as one or more central processors, random access memory (RAM),read-only memory (ROM), storage devices such as hard disks,communication means such as a modem or a card to enable networking withother computing devices, a bus that provides data transmission betweenvarious hardware components, a keyboard, a display, an operating systemand so forth. There is no restriction that the particular systemembodiment of the invention have any specific hardware components andany known or future developed hardware configurations are contemplatedas within the scope of the invention when the computing device operatesas is claimed.

Job information is provided to the workload manager scheduler from aresource manager such as Loadleveler, Portable Batch System (PBS), Wiki,or Platform's LSF products. Those of skill in the art will be familiarwith each of these software products. Job attributes include ownershipof the job, job state, amount and type of resources required by the job,required criteria (I need this job finished in 1 hour), preferredcriteria (I would like this job to complete in ½ hour) and a wallclocklimit, indicating how long the resources are required. A job consists ofone or more requirements each of which requests a number of resources ofa given type. For example, a job may consist of two requirements, thefirst asking for ‘1 IBM node with at least 512 MB of RAM’ and the secondasking for ‘24 IBM nodes with at least 128 MB of RAM’. Each requirementconsists of one or more tasks where a task is defined as the minimalindependent unit of resources. A task is a collection of elementaryresources which must be allocated together within a single node. Forexample, a task may consist of one processor, 512 MB or memory, and 2 GBof local disk. A task may also be just a single processor. In symmetricmultiprocessor (SMP) environments, however, users may wish to tie one ormore processors together with a certain amount of memory and/or otherresources. A key aspect of a task is that the resources associated withthe task must be allocated as an atomic unit, without spanning nodeboundaries. A task requesting 2 processors cannot be satisfied byallocating 2 uni-processor nodes, nor can a task requesting 1 processorand 1 GB of memory be satisfied by allocating 1 processor on one nodeand memory on another.

A job requirement (or req) consists of a request for a single type ofresources. Each requirement consists of the following components: (1) atask definition is a specification of the elementary resources whichcompose an individual task; (2) resource constraints provide aspecification of conditions which must be met in order for resourcematching to occur. Only resources from nodes which meet all resourceconstraints may be allocated to the job requirement; (3) a task countrelates to the number of task instances required by the requirement; (4)a task List is a list of nodes on which the task instances have beenlocated; and (5) requirement statistics are statistics tracking resourceutilization.

As far as the workload manager is concerned, a node is a collection ofresources with a particular set of associated attributes. In most cases,it fits nicely with the canonical world view of a node such as a PCcluster node or an SP node. In these cases, a node is defined as one ormore CPU's, memory, and possibly other compute resources such as localdisk, swap, network adapters, software licenses, etc. Additionally, thisnode will described by various attributes such as an architecture typeor operating system. Nodes range in size from small uni-processor PC'sto large SMP systems where a single node may consist of hundreds ofCPU's and massive amounts of memory.

Information about nodes is provided to the scheduler chiefly by theresource manager. Attributes include node state, configured andavailable resources (i.e., processors, memory, swap, etc.), run classessupported, etc.

Policies are generally specified via a configuration file and serve tocontrol how and when jobs start. Policies include, but are not limitedto, job prioritization, fairness policies, fairshare configurationpolicies, and scheduling policies. Jobs, nodes, and reservations alldeal with the abstract concept of a resource. A resource in the workloadmanager world is one of the following: (1) processors which arespecified with a simple count value; (2) memory such as real memory or‘RAM’ is specified in megabytes (MB); (3) swap which is virtual memoryor ‘swap’ is specified in megabytes (MB); and (4) disk space such as alocal disk is specified in megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). In additionto these elementary resource types, there are two higher level resourceconcepts used within workload manager. These are the task and theprocessor equivalent (PE).

In a workload manager, jobs or reservations that request resources makesuch a request in terms of tasks typically using a task count and a taskdefinition. By default, a task maps directly to a single processorwithin a job and maps to a full node within reservations. In all cases,this default definition can be overridden by specifying a new taskdefinition. Within both jobs and reservations, depending on taskdefinition, it is possible to have multiple tasks from the same jobmapped to the same node. For example, a job requesting 4 tasks using thedefault task definition of 1 processor per task, can be satisfied by twodual processor nodes.

The concept of the PE arose out of the need to translate multi-resourceconsumption requests into a scalar value. It is not an elementaryresource, but rather, a derived resource metric. It is a measure of theactual impact of a set of requested resources by a job on the totalresources available system wide. It is calculated as:PE=MAX(ProcsRequestedByJob/TotalConfiguredProcs,MemoryRequestedByJob/TotalConfiguredMemory,DiskRequestedByJob/TotalConfiguredDisk,SwapRequestedByJob/TotalConfiguredSwap)*TotalConfiguredProcs

For example, say a job requested 20% of the total processors and 50% ofthe total memory of a 128 processor MPP system. Only two such jobs couldbe supported by this system. The job is essentially using 50% of allavailable resources since the system can only be scheduled to its mostconstrained resource, in this case memory. The processor equivalents forthis job should be 50% of the PE=64.

A further example will be instructive. Assume a homogeneous 100 nodesystem with 4 processors and 1 GB of memory per node. A job is submittedrequesting 2 processors and 768 MB of memory. The PE for this job wouldbe calculated as:PE=MAX(2/(100*4), 768/(100*1024))*(100*4)=3.

This result makes sense since the job would be consuming ¾ of the memoryon a 4 processor node. The calculation works equally well on homogeneousor heterogeneous systems, uni-processor or large way SMP systems.

A class (or queue) is a logical container object which can be used toimplicitly or explicitly apply policies to jobs. In most cases, a classis defined and configured within the resource manager and associatedwith one or more of the attributes or constraints shown in Table 1below. TABLE 1 Attributes of a Class Attribute Description Default Job Aqueue may be associated with a default job duration, Attributes defaultsize, or default resource requirements Host A queue may constrain jobexecution to a particular Constraints set of hosts Job Constraints Aqueue may constrain the attributes of jobs which may submitted includingsetting limits such as max wallclock time, minimum number of processors,etc. Access List A queue may constrain who may submit jobs into it basedon user lists, group lists, etc. Special Access A queue may associatespecial privileges with jobs including adjusted job priority.

As stated previously, most resource managers allow full classconfiguration within the resource manager. Where additional classconfiguration is required, the CLASSCFG parameter may be used. Theworkload manager tracks class usage as a consumable resource allowingsites to limit the number of jobs using a particular class. This is doneby monitoring class initiators which may be considered to be a ticket torun in a particular class. Any compute node may simultaneously supportseveral types of classes and any number of initiators of each type. Bydefault, nodes will have a one-to-one mapping between class initiatorsand configured processors. For every job task run on the node, one classinitiator of the appropriate type is consumed. For example, a threeprocessor job submitted to the class batch will consume three batchclass initiators on the nodes where it is run.

Using queues as consumable resources allows sites to specify variouspolicies by adjusting the class initiator to node mapping. For example,a site running serial jobs may want to allow a particular 8 processornode to run any combination of batch and special jobs subject to thefollowing constraints:

-   -   only 8 jobs of any type allowed simultaneously    -   no more than 4 special jobs allowed simultaneously

To enable this policy, the site may set the node's MAXJOB policy to 8and configure the node with 4 special class initiators and 8 batch classinitiators. Note that in virtually all cases jobs have a one-to-onecorrespondence between processors requested and class initiatorsrequired. However, this is not a requirement and, with specialconfiguration sites may choose to associate job tasks with arbitrarycombinations of class initiator requirements.

In displaying class initiator status, workload manager signifies thetype and number of class initiators available using the format[<CLASSNAME>:<CLASSCOUNT>]. This is most commonly seen in the output ofnode status commands indicating the number of configured and availableclass initiators, or in job status commands when displaying classinitiator requirements.

Nodes can also be configured to support various arbitrary resources.Information about such resources can be specified using the NODECFGparameter. For example, a node may be configured to have “256 MB RAM, 4processors, 1 GB Swap, and 2 tape drives”.

We next turn to the concept of reservations. There are several types ofreservations which sites typically deal with. The first, administrativereservations, are typically one-time reservations created for specialpurposes and projects. These reservations are created using a commandthat sets a reservation. These reservations provide an integratedmechanism to allow graceful management of unexpected system maintenance,temporary projects, and time critical demonstrations. This commandallows an administrator to select a particular set of resources or justspecify the quantity of resources needed. For example, an administratorcould use a regular expression to request a reservation be created onthe nodes ‘blue0[1-9]’ or could simply request that the reservationlocate the needed resources by specifying a quantity based request suchas ‘TASKS==20’.

Another type of reservation is called a standing reservation. This isshown in FIG. 2A. A standing reservation is useful for recurring needsfor a particular type of resource distribution. For example, a sitecould use a standing reservation to reserve a subset of its computeresources for quick turnaround jobs during business hours on Monday thruFriday. Standing reservations are created and configured by specifyingparameters in a configuration file.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the compute environment 202 includes standingreservations shown as 204A, 204B and 204C. These reservations showresources allocated and reserved on a periodic basis. These are, forexample, consuming reservations meaning that cluster resources will beconsumed by the reservation. These reservations are specific to a useror a group of users and allow the reserved resources to be alsocustomized specific to the workload submitted by these users or groups.For example, one aspect of the invention is that a user may have accessto reservation 204A and not only submit jobs to the reserved resourcesbut request, perhaps for optimization or to meet preferred criteria asopposed to required criteria, that the resources within the reservationbe modified by virtual partitioning or some other means to accommodatethe particular submitted job. In this regard, this embodiment of theinvention enables the user to submit and perhaps request modification oroptimization within the reserved resources for that particular job.There may be an extra charge or debit of an account of credits for themodification of the reserved resources. The modification of resourceswithin the reservation according to the particular job may also beperformed based on a number of factors discussed herein, such ascriteria, class, quality of service, policies etc.

Standing reservations build upon the capabilities of advancereservations to enable a site to enforce advanced usage policies in anefficient manner. Standing reservations provide a superset of thecapabilities typically found in a batch queuing system's class or queuearchitecture. For example, queues can be used to allow only particulartypes of jobs access to certain compute resources. Also, some batchsystems allow these queues to be configured so that they only allow thisaccess during certain times of the day or week. Standing reservationsallow these same capabilities but with greater flexibility andefficiency than is typically found in a normal queue management system.

Standing Reservations provide a mechanism by which a site can dedicate aparticular block of resources for a special use on a regular daily orweekly basis. For example, node X could be dedicated to running jobsonly from users in the accounting group every Friday from 4 to 10 PM. Astanding reservation is a powerful means of controlling access toresources and controlling turnaround of jobs.

Another embodiment of reservation is something called a reservationmask, which allows a site to create “sandboxes” in which otherguarantees can be made. The most common aspects of this reservation arefor grid environments and personal reservation environments. In a gridenvironment, a remote entity will be requesting resources and will wantto use these resources on an autonomous cluster for the autonomouscluster to participate. In many cases it will want to constrain when andwhere the entities can reserve or utilize resources. One way of doingthat is via the reservation mask.

FIG. 2B illustrates the reservation mask shown as creating sandboxes206A, 206B, 206C in compute environment 210 and allows the autonomouscluster to state that only a specific subset of resources can be used bythese remote requesters during a specific subset of times. When arequester asks for resources, the scheduler will only report and returnresources available within this reservation, after which point theremote entity desires it, it can actually make a consumption reservationand that reservation is guaranteed to be within the reservation maskspace. The consumption reservations 212A, 212B, 212C, 212D are shownwithin the reservation masks.

Another concept related to reservations is the personal reservationand/or the personal reservation mask. In compute environment 210, thereservation masks operate differently from consuming reservations inthat they are enabled to allow personal reservations to be createdwithin the space that is reserved. ACL's are independent inside of asandbox reservation or a reservation mask in that you can also excludeother requesters out of those spaces so they're dedicated for theseparticular users.

One benefit of the personal reservation approach includes preventinglocal job starvation, and providing a high level of control to thecluster manager in that he or she can determine exactly when, where, howmuch and who can use these resources even though he doesn't necessarilyknow who the requesters are or the combination or quantity of resourcesthey will request. The administrator can determine when, how and whererequesters will participate in these clusters or grids. A valuable useis in the space of personal reservations which typically involves alocal user given the authority to reserve a block of resources for arigid time frame. Again, with a personal reservation mask, the requestsare limited to only allow resource reservation within the mask timeframe and mask resource set, providing again the administrator theability to constrain exactly when and exactly where and exactly how muchof resources individual users can reserve for a rigid time frame. Theindividual user is not known ahead of time but it is known to thesystem, it is a standard local cluster user.

The reservation masks 206A, 206B and 206C define periodic, personalreservation masks where other reservations in the compute environment210 may be created, i.e., outside the defined boxes. These areprovisioning or policy-based reservations in contrast to consumingreservations. In this regard, the resources in this type of reservationare not specifically allocated but the time and space defined by thereservation mask cannot be reserved for other jobs. Reservation masksenable the system to be able to control the fact that resources areavailable for specific purposes, during specific time frames. The timeframes may be either single time frames or repeating time frames todedicate the resources to meet project needs, policies, guarantees ofservice, administrative needs, demonstration needs, etc. This type ofreservation insures that reservations are managed and scheduled in timeas well as space. Boxes 208A, 208B, 208C and 208D represent non-personalreservation masks. They have the freedom to be placed anywhere incluster including overlapping some or all of the reservation masks 206A,206B, 206C. Overlapping is allowed when the personal reservation maskwas setup with a global ACL. To prevent the possibility of an overlap ofa reservation mask by a non-personal reservation, the administrator canset an ACL to constrain it is so that only personal consumptionreservations are inside. These personal consumption reservations areshown as boxes 212B, 212A, 212C, 212D which are constrained to be withinthe personal reservation masks 206A, 206B, 206C. The 208A, 208B, 208Cand 208D reservations, if allowed, can go anywhere within the cluster210 including overlapping the other personal reservation masks. Theresult is the creation of a “sandbox” where only personal reservationscan go without in any way constraining the behavior of the scheduler toschedule other requests.

All reservations possess a start and an end time which define thereservation's active time. During this active time, the resources withinthe reservation may only be used as specified by the reservation ACL.This active time may be specified as either a start/end pair or astart/duration pair. Reservations exist and are visible from the timethey are created until the active time ends at which point they areautomatically removed.

For a reservation to be useful, it must be able to limit who or what canaccess the resources it has reserved. This is handled by way of anaccess control list, or ACL. With reservations, ACL's can be based oncredentials, resources requested, or performance metrics. In particular,with a standing reservation, the attributes userlist, grouplist,accountlist, classlist, qoslist, jobattrlist, proclimit, timelimit andothers may be specified.

FIG. 3 illustrates an aspect of the present invention that allows theACL 306 for the reservation 304 to have a dynamic aspect instead ofsimply being based on who the requester is. The ACL decision-makingprocess is based at least in part on the current level of service orresponse time that is being delivered to the requester. To illustratethe operation of the ACL 306, assume that a user 308 submits a job 314to a queue 310 and that the ACL 306 reports that the only job that canaccess these resources 302 are those that have a queue time thatcurrently exceeds two hours. The resources 302 are shown with resourcesN on the y axis and time on the x axis. If the job 314 has sat in thequeue 310 for two hours it will then access the additional resources toprevent the queue time for the user 308 from increasing significantlybeyond this time frame. The decision to allocate these additionalresources can be keyed off of utilization of an expansion factor andother performance metrics of the job. For example, the reservation 304may be expanded or contracted or migrated to cover a new set ofresources.

Whether or not an ACL 306 is satisfied is typically and preferablydetermined the scheduler 104A. However, there is no restriction in theprinciple of the invention regarding where or on what node in thenetwork the process of making these allocation of resource decisionsoccurs. The scheduler 104A is able to monitor all aspects of the requestby looking at the current job 314 inside the queue 310 and how long ithas sat there and what the response time target is and the scheduleritself determines whether all requirements of the ACL 306 are satisfied.If requirements are satisfied, it releases the resources that areavailable to the job 314. A job 314 that is located in the queue and thescheduler communicating with the scheduler 104A. If resources areallocated, the job 314 is taken from the queue 310 and inserted into thereservation 314 in the cluster 302.

An example benefit of this model is that it makes it significantlyeasier for a site to balance or provide guaranteed levels of service orconstant levels of service for key players or the general populace. Bysetting aside certain resources and only making them available to thejobs which threaten to violate their quality of service targets, thesystem increases the probability of satisfying targets.

When specifying which resources to reserve, the administrator has anumber of options. These options allow control over how many resourcesare reserved and where they are reserved at. The following reservationattributes allow the administrator to define resources.

An important aspect of reservations is the idea of a task. The scheduleruses the task concept extensively for its job and reservationmanagement. A task is simply an atomic collection of resources, such asprocessors, memory, or local disk, which must be found on the same node.For example, if a task requires 4 processors and 2 GB of memory, thescheduler must find all processors AND memory on the same node; itcannot allocate 3 processors and 1 GB on one node and 1 processor and 1GB of memory on another node to satisfy this task. Tasks constrain howthe scheduler must collect resources for use in a standing reservation,however, they do not constrain the way in which the scheduler makesthese cumulative resources available to jobs. A job can use theresources covered by an accessible reservation in whatever way it needs.If reservation X allocated 6 tasks with 2 processors and 512 MB ofmemory each, it could support job Y which requires 10 tasks of 1processor and 128 MB of memory or job Z which requires 2 tasks of 4processors and 1 GB of memory each. The task constraints used to acquirea reservation's resources are completely transparent to a job requestinguse of these resources. Using the task description, the taskcountattribute defines how many tasks must be allocated to satisfy thereservation request. To create a reservation, a taskcount and/or ahostlist may be specified.

A hostlist constrains the set of resource which are available to areservation. If no taskcount is specified, the reservation will attemptto reserve one task on each of the listed resources. If a taskcount isspecified which requests fewer resources than listed in the hostlist,the scheduler will reserve only the number of tasks from the hostlistspecified by the taskcount attribute. If a taskcount is specified whichrequests more resources than listed in the hostlist, the scheduler willreserve the hostlist nodes first and then seek additional resourcesoutside of this list.

Reservation flags allow specification of special reservation attributesor behaviors. Supported flags are listed in table 2 below. TABLE 2 FlagName Description BESTEFFORT N/A BYNAME reservation will only allowaccess to jobs which meet reservation ACL's and explicitly request theresources of this reservation using the job ADVRES flag IGNRSV requestwill ignore existing resource reservations allowing the reservation tobe forced onto available resources even if this conflicts with otherreservations. OWNERPREEMPT job's by the reservation owner are allowed topreempt non-owner jobs using reservation resources PREEMPTEE Preempts ajob or other object SINGLEUSE reservation is automatically removed aftercompletion of the first job to use the reserved resources SPACEFLEXreservation is allowed to adjust resources allocated over time in anattempt to optimize resource utilization TIMEFLEX reservation is allowedto adjust the reserved timeframe in an attempt to optimize resourceutilization

Reservations must explicitly request the ability to float foroptimization purposes by using a flag such as the SPACEFLEX flag. Thereservations may be established and then identified as self-optimizingin either space or time. If the reservation is flagged as such, thenafter the reservation is created, conditions within the computeenvironment may be monitored to provide feedback on where optimizationmay occur. If so justified, a reservation may migrate to a new time ormigrate to a new set of resources that are more optimal than theoriginal reservation.

FIG. 4 illustrates a reservation creation window 400 that includes theuse of the flags in Table 2. A user Scott input reservation informationin a variety of fields 402 for name, partition, node features andfloating reservation. Each of these input fields includes a drop-downmenu to enable the selection of options easy. An access control listinput field 404 allows the user to input an account, class/queue, user,group and QoS information. Resources may be assigned and searched andtasks created 406 and reservation flags set 408, such as best effort,single use, preemptee, time flex, by name, owner preempt, space flex,exclusive and force. These flags set parameters that may cause thereservation to be optimized such as in time or space where it migratesto a new time or over new resources based on monitored events or otherfeedback.

A reservation time-frame 410 may also be input such as one, daily,weekly, with start and end times for the reservation. Menu drop downcalendars and clocks are available for easily enabling the user to viewand graphically input and select the various timeframe parameters. Eventtriggers may also be input wherein the user can create one or moretriggers associated with the reservation. As generally shown in FIG. 4,the use of a graphical interface simplifies the reservation-creationprocess for the administrator or user.

FIG. 5 illustrates a process of generating a co-allocation mapping for aco-allocation query. The co-allocation reservation allows one to reserveresources which span multiple different resource types, for instance arequestor can reserve nodes with four nodes of a particular operatingsystem with 6 nodes that have at least a gig of memory available and therequestor can pull those together into a single reservation basicallyallowing one to co-allocate these various resources and guarantee theiravailability.

To illustrate this aspect of the invention, assume in this case that aco-allocation request was submitted to the system which identifies afirst request (R1) 502 and a second request (R2) 504. These are requeststo query the compute resources 500 and return information regardingavailable resources for reservation. The areas 506, 508, 510, and 512represent identified resources that may be reserved according to R1and/or R2.

Graph 514 illustrates the result of the query for R1. The x-axisrepresents time and the y-axis represents resources, such as processorsor a set of resources like processors and network bandwidth. Each partof the mapping 516, 518 is shown with a height reflecting the resourcesavailable and has a width 517 in time that reflects the time frame(start time and end time) at which those resources may be available forreservation. Similarly, graph 520 shows a query for R2 with its sets ofdata reflecting resources available with time frames of availability522. These mappings include an analysis of constraints and guaranteesassociated with each request and each user. Graph 524 then represents aunion or intersection of mappings for R1 and R2 to generate a mapping ofwhere the resources are and when the resources can be co-allocatedaccording to the co-allocation request.

The resulting mapping 524 illustrates that in this case, there are threeoptions 526, 528 and 530 from which the user can select or a system canautomatically select which resulting mapping will be committed for anactual reservation of those resources. This mapping represents aco-allocation map between the first group of resources for R1 and asecond group of resources associated with R2.

This capability is very valuable in terms of grid environments but alsodynamic hosting environment and in cluster environments as well. Inorder to enable a co-allocation reservation you actually have to breakit into at least two steps depending on the number of unions ofresources that need to be allocated. This is done using algorithms thatform of range calculus allowing one to actually evaluate each uniqueresource request independently and determine the quantity or resourcesand the time frames during which those resources are available so as tosatisfying that dimension or that aspect of the request at each aspectof the request.

FIG. 6 illustrates a method embodiment of the co-allocation reservation.Suppose a requestor asks for a reservation of two nodes with operatingsystem X and two nodes with operating system Y for a period of time suchas one hour. These resources that are requested may have attributes suchas disk storage space, memory, license scope, network bandwidthcapability, clock speed and central processing power. Other attributesmay exist as well to characterize compute resources. The requestincludes two types of resources. The requests may relate to one of a jobdescription, at least one time frame availability, a description ofminimum resources necessary to meet the request, a description ofresource types and attributes, a reservation duration minimum (say itneeds to complete a submitted job in one hour or a reservation madeaccording to this request should be no shorter than two hours). Otherincluded features may include preferred criteria (I would like to finisha submitted job in ½ hour).

The method comprises receiving a first request for a reservation of afirst type of resource (602). The first type of resource may have anattribute such as, for example, one of disk storage space, memory,license scope, network bandwidth capability, clock speed and centralprocessing power.

The system evaluates all the constraints and the other guarantees thatthe scheduler has already made and resources and the time frames duringwhich they are available to satisfy that full hour request and theparticular resource constraint (604) (i.e., the operating system X). Theconstraints may be at least one of resource matching in terms of type,attribute or quantity. They may also include guarantees associated withthe first request and the second request relate to resource-basedpolicies or to time-based policies. For example, the time-based policiesmay limit requestors to a pre-determined quantity of resources at anygiven moment in time.

The system identifies a first group of resources that meet the requestand stores that in a first list (606). This list represents, forexample, the resources that are available from time A to time B, timeframe C to time frame D, time frame E to time frame F. This concept isreflected in graph 514 of FIG. 5. Once that list is established, thesystem receives a second request for a reservation of a second type ofresource (608) and analyses the constraints and guarantees associatedwith the second request (610). This mapping is a series of ranges duringwhich the second type of resource is available and stores that in asecond list, represented in graph 520. The system then identifies asecond group of resources that meet the second request (612) andgenerates a co-allocation mapping between the first group of resourcesand the second group of resources (614). The generated map represents areduced map of quantities of resources that can simultaneously satisfythe first request and the second request. The height of the generatedmap may or may not represent a resource quantity.

In a preferred embodiment, the height of the generated map is a Booleanindication of whether resource are available that can meet both requestsor not. The generated map also represents all time frames representingavailable resources that satisfy the first request and the secondrequest.

The step of identifying the first group of resources and the secondgroup of resources may also relate to analyzing events associated withthe fist request and the second request and how resource availabilitychanges over time. This feature is also illustrated in FIG. 5. Theseevents that are analyzed may comprise at least one of job start, jobcompletion, state change, boundaries of reservations or otherparameters, reservations and policy enforcement limits. Other factorsthat may play a role in the identification of parameters include cost,quality of information data, resource quantity data, time frame data andresource quality data.

There may further be an iterative approach that takes advantage of thegenerated co-allocation map. For example, an aspect of the inventionutilizes this information by performing again under constraintsassociated with the co-allocation map the step of identifying a firstgroup and/or a second group of resources that meet the first orrespective second request.

The method may also comprise receiving a request for a reservation for afirst type of resource further by receiving a request for the first typeof resource for a first time frame and wherein the identifying andanalyzing steps for the first type of resource take into account thefirst time frame. Similarly, the step of receiving a request for areservation for a second type of resource may further comprise receivinga request for the second type of resource for a second time frame,wherein the identifying and analyzing steps for the second type ofresource take into account the second time frame. In this case, the stepof generating the co-allocation map between the first group of resourcesand the second group of resources then further comprises calculating anintersection of the first time frame and the second time frame.

The system processes the lists via an algorithm that calculates theintersection of these ranges and determines a new resulting range whichis the intersection that meets all the time frame and resource quantityconstraints. The range may be purely a time range of available resourcesor a time and resource range. The result is an additional range thatincludes the additional co-allocation aspects that need to beconsidered. The algorithm continues to take the intersection of theresulting intersection of a previous request with a new request andarrives at an ultimate range that incorporates all resource requests. Inthis regard, more than two requests may be made for resources and aprocess may be repeated to identify a range that considers all requests.

The resulting co-allocation is a resource availability range list. Thislist may also be termed an array of events describing the intersectingtime frames. The array of events may comprise at least one of resourcequantity, resource quality, time frames, quality of information andcost. From that range list, the system can reserve compute resourcesthat therefore best satisfy the needs of the requestor according to therequest. In one aspect of the invention, before reserving computeresources, the system presents to a requester of a reservation of thefirst and second type of resources an analysis of the compute resourcesand the reservation. The presented analysis may relate to a quantity andquality of the cluster resources in relation to the request for areservation for resources. In this way, the requestor may have theoption to make changes to the request or the jobs to be submitted to thereserved resources, and so forth. The compute resources may be on-demandresources, grid resources or cluster environment resources. Within eachof these contexts, the compute resources further may be disk storage,network bandwidth, memory resources, licensing resources, operatingsystem, software modules and/or provisioning resources.

If all the intersection comparisons do not result in being able todeliver the quality of service, then the quality of service is going tobe an independent parameter that will be separately calculated. Forexample, the first step is to determine feasibility, what resources areavailable, what are the time-frames, and then if those time framescannot be satisfied, the resulting time frames that are available withinthe quality of service that's requested. The system can then determineto give additional resource access and privileges to the request. Again,the evaluation is performed with the super-set of resources andsuper-set of services. If the system can meet the request at a highercost or a higher quality of service, then the new reservation is madefor the identified resources to meet the promised criteria.

There are other aspects of the co-allocation reservation. For example,the system may receive a request for a reservation for a first type ofresource which includes a request for the first type of resource for afirst given time frame. If this is the case, then the step ofidentifying and analyzing steps for the first type of resource will takeinto account the first given time frame. In addition, the request for areservation for a second type of resource may include a request for thesecond type of resource for a second given time frame. Also, if this isthe case, then the method comprises take into account the second giventime frame when performing the identifying and analyzing steps of themethod. With these new time frames, the method comprise calculating aco-allocation parameter between the first group of resources and thesecond group of resources further comprises calculating theco-allocation parameter of the first given time frame and the secondgiven time frame.

Examples of the basis for the co-allocation parameter include aninteraction, a union or a distinct response. For example, if one hasthree nodes and the first node has a feature A, the second node hasfeature B and the third node has feature A and C. If the requestor wantsto distinct responses from the request for a reservation (such as for myfirst request I want nodes with feature A shown and with my secondrequest I want nodes with feature B shown), then if the system were toperform an intersection analysis, then it would return a list of A, Band C. If the system were to return a union analysis, it would list A, Band C. However, if the system were to return a distinct response, itwould provide A for a first grouping and then B and C in a secondgrouping; or A and C in the first grouping and B in the second grouping.In this regard, the intersection space used to identify matches canprovide more than one response to one request. The system canintelligently split up these possible solutions and feed to a responseto the requestor according to the size of, or quantity or resourcesrequested and the degree of fulfillment of that request with theavailable resources. For example, the requestor may see if a list ofresources for host X with its features or host Y and its features orhost Z and its features that could the solution to the request.

The requestor may select that calculating the co-allocation parameteralso returns an analysis according to at least one of the interaction,union or distinct response. The analysis returned to the requestor,according to at least one of the interaction, union or distinctresponse, may correspond to an analysis of the quantity or quality ofresources and a degree of fulfillment of the request according toavailable resources. The returned analysis may also comprise a list ofresources that can fulfill the request and a transaction ID associatedwith the analysis. The transaction ID may then be used to present to therequestor an option to submit the request with reference to thetransaction ID. In this regard, the response may be: Transaction ID 1: 3nodes at 4 pm; Transaction ID 2: 4 nodes at 5 pm; and Transaction ID 3:4 nodes at 12 am. The user can then commit the request and create areservation based on a transaction ID. The requestor may also submit arevised request for resources based on the returned analysis, if forexample, the analysis shows that there are no resources available withina day and the user desires to start jobs earlier than that time.

Another aspect of the co-allocation of reservations relates toidentifying a request with a flag related to exclusion. This is anoption identified in the reservation flags options 408 in FIG. 4. Theexclusive flag or parameter may be identified with one or more requestsfor resources. In this regard, the generated map of co-allocatedresources represents a set of resources exclusive to at least one of thefirst request or the second request. With an exclusive parameterattached to the first request, the method may further includeguaranteeing that the first request will be able to reserve exclusiveresources. The method may further comprise generating a co-allocationmap between the first group of resources and the second group ofresources.

An example will assist in understating the co-allocation exclusionrequest. With reference to FIG. 5, assume a first request R1 requests afirst set of resources and R2 requests a second set of resources. Atleast one request is set with the exclusive flag. Setting this flagchanges the analysis and mapping and the end results when a reservationis committed. The exclusive analysis includes analyzing R1 during theco-allocation time frame identified and bounded in the union analysis532 and identifying an R1 list 1 and an R1 list 2 bounded by the uniontime frame 532, and identifying an R2 list 1 and an R2 list 2 in thebounded time frame 532. (There may also be time frames for mappings 528and 530 with analysis as well). An analysis is done to generate theselists called a multi-request distribute balance tasks that steps throughand provides resources to the lists according to the most needy request.The result of the analysis is a transaction ID (1) for R1 whichrepresents available resources for R1 during the union time frame 532and a transaction ID (2) for R2 representing available resources for R2for the time frame 532. But the underlying analysis, and what is hiddeninside these transaction IDs, is a mapping in each case to an explicitset of resources. If the user then commits the co-allocation request,the reservation for this query will reserve two different explicit setsof resources guaranteed to not overlap associated with the twotransaction IDs.

With this in mind, an aspect of the exclusion embodiment of theinvention relates to a method of co-allocating resources within acompute environment. This embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 7. Themethod comprises receiving a first request for a reservation for a firsttype of resource (702), analyzing constraints and guarantees associatedwith the first request (704), identifying a first group of resourcesthat meet the request for the first type of resource (706), receiving asecond request for a reservation for a second type of resource (708),analyzing constraints and guarantees associated with the second request(710), identifying a second group of resources that meet the request forthe second type of resource (712) and generating a set of resourcesexclusive to at least one of the first request or the second request(714).

The first request may specify exclusivity and if so, the system mayrespond with a guarantee that the first request will be able to reserveexclusive resources. In this scenario, the system may then generate aco-allocation map between the first group of resources and the secondgroup of resources.

Embodiments within the scope of the present invention may also includecomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to carryor store desired program code means in the form of computer-executableinstructions or data structures. When information is transferred orprovided over a network or another communications connection (eitherhardwired, wireless, or combination thereof) to a computer, the computerproperly views the connection as a computer-readable medium. Thus, anysuch connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium.Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope ofthe computer-readable media.

Computer-executable instructions include, for example, instructions anddata which cause a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,or special purpose processing device to perform a certain function orgroup of functions. Computer-executable instructions also includeprogram modules that are executed by computers in stand-alone or networkenvironments. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,objects, components, and data structures, etc. that perform particulartasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executableinstructions, associated data structures, and program modules representexamples of the program code means for executing steps of the methodsdisclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executableinstructions or associated data structures represents examples ofcorresponding acts for implementing the functions described in suchsteps.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that other embodiments of theinvention may be practiced in network computing environments with manytypes of computer system configurations, including personal computers,hand-held devices, multi-processor systems, microprocessor-based orprogrammable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframecomputers, and the like. Embodiments may also be practiced indistributed computing environments where tasks are performed by localand remote processing devices that are linked (either by hardwiredlinks, wireless links, or by a combination thereof) through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.

Although the above description may contain specific details, they shouldnot be construed as limiting the claims in any way. Other configurationsof the described embodiments of the invention are part of the scope ofthis invention. Accordingly, the appended claims and their legalequivalents should only define the invention, rather than any specificexamples given.

1. A method of co-allocating resources within a compute environment, themethod comprising: receiving a first request for a reservation for afirst type of resource; analyzing constraints and guarantees associatedwith the first request; identifying a first group of resources that meetthe first request; receiving a second request for a reservation for asecond type of resource; analyzing constraints and guarantees associatedwith the second request; identifying a second group of resources thatmeet the second request; and generating a co-allocation map between thefirst group of resources and the second group of resources.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising reserving resources according tothe generated co-allocation map.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereingenerating the co-allocation map comprises identifying a reduced map ofquantities of resources that can simultaneously satisfy the firstrequest and the second request.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein theco-allocation map comprises all time frames where available resourcesexist that satisfy the first request and the second request.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein possible types of resources comprise at leastone of: compute resources, disk storage resources, network bandwidthresources, memory resources, licensing resources.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein generating the co-allocation map further comprisesidentifying an intersection of the availability of each of the firsttype of resource and the second type of resource.
 7. The method of claim6, wherein generating the co-allocation map further comprisesdetermining intersecting time frames in which both the first request andthe second request may be simultaneously satisfied.
 8. The method ofclaim 7, further comprising: generating a resulting array of eventsdescribing the intersecting time frames.
 9. The method of claim 8,wherein the resulting array of events comprises at least one of resourcequantity, resource quality, time frames, quality of information andcost.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first request and thesecond request comprise at least one of: a job description, at least onetime frame availability, a description of minimum resources, adescription of resource types and attributes, a reservation durationminimum.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the first groupof resources and the second group of resources further comprisesanalyzing events associated with the first request and the secondrequest and how resource availability changes over time.
 12. The methodof claim 11, wherein the events comprise at least one of job start, jobcompletion, state change, boundaries, reservations and policyenforcement limits.
 13. The method of claim 1, further comprisingreporting at least one of the following parameters associated with theidentified first and second group of resources: cost, quality ofinformation data, resource quantity data, time frame data, and resourcequality data.
 14. The method of claim 1, further comprising: performingagain, under constraints identified by the co-allocation map, the stepof identifying a first group of resources that meet the request for thefirst type of resource.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:performing again, under constraints identified by the co-allocation map,the step of identifying a second group of resources that meet therequest for the second type of resource.
 16. The method of claim 1,wherein: receiving a request for a reservation for a first type ofresource further comprises receiving a request for the first type ofresource for a first time frame, and wherein the identifying andanalyzing steps for the first type of resource take into account thefirst time frame; receiving a request for a reservation for a secondtype of resource further comprises receiving a request for the secondtype of resource for a second time frame, wherein the identifying andanalyzing steps for the second type of resource take into account thesecond time frame; and generating the co-allocation map between thefirst group of resources and the second group of resources furthercomprises calculating an intersection of the first time frame and thesecond time frame.
 17. The method of claim 1, wherein the constraintsare at least one of resource matching in terms of type, attribute orquantity.
 18. The method of claim 1, wherein the constraints andguarantees associated with the first request and the second requestrelate to resource-based policies.
 19. The method of claim 1, whereinthe constraints and guarantees associated with the first request and thesecond request relate to time-based policies.
 20. The method of claim19, wherein the time-based policies limit requestors to a pre-determinedquantity of resources at any given moment in time.
 21. The method ofclaim 1, wherein receiving a request for a reservation for a first typeof resource further comprises receiving a request for a reservation forthe first type of resource having an attribute.
 22. The method of claim21, wherein the attribute is at least one of disk storage space, memory,license scope, network bandwidth capability, clock speed and centralprocessing power.
 23. The method of claim 1, wherein the co-allocationmap is computed as one of an intersection, a union or a distinctresponse.
 24. The method of claim 23, further comprising, beforereserving compute resources, presenting to a requestor of a reservationof the first and second type of resources an analysis of the computeresources and a possible reservation.
 25. The method of claim 24,wherein the presented analysis relates to a quantity and quality of thecompute resources in relation to the request for a reservation forresources.
 26. The method of claim 25, further comprising: receivingfrom the requestor of a reservation a revised request for resourcesbased on the presented analysis.
 27. The method of claim 23, wherein arequestor may select that generating the co-allocation map returns ananalysis according to at least one of the interaction, union or distinctresponse.
 28. The method of claim 27, wherein the analysis returned tothe requestor, according to at least one of the interaction, union ordistinct response, corresponds to an analysis of the quantity ofresources and a degree of fulfillment of the request according toavailable resources.
 29. The method of claim 28, wherein the analysisreturned to the requestor further comprises a list of resources that canfulfill the request of the requestor.
 30. The method of claim 28,wherein the analysis returned to the requestor further comprises atransaction ID associated with the analysis.
 31. The method of claim 30,further comprising presenting to the requestor an option to submit therequest with reference to the transaction ID.
 32. A method of claim 1,wherein the generated co-allocation map represents a set of resourcesexclusive to at least one of the first request or the second request.33. The method of claim 32, wherein the first request specifiesexclusivity.
 34. The method of claim 33, further comprising:guaranteeing that the first request will be able to reserve exclusiveresources.
 35. The method of claim 32, further comprising generating aco-allocation map between the first group of resources and the secondgroup of resources.
 36. A system for co-allocating resources within acompute environment, the system comprising: means for receiving a firstrequest for a reservation for a first type of resource; means foranalyzing constraints and guarantees associated with the first request;means for identifying a first group of resources that meet the requestfor the first type of resource; means for receiving a second request fora reservation for a second type of resource; means for analyzingconstraints and guarantees associated with the second request; means foridentifying a second group of resources that meet the request for thesecond type of resource; and means for generating a co-allocation mapbetween the first group of resources and the second group of resources.37. The system of claim 36, further comprising means for reservingresources according to the calculated co-allocation map.
 38. A systemfor co-allocating resources within a compute environment, the systemcomprising: a module configured to receive a first request for areservation for a first type of resource; a module configured to analyzeconstraints and guarantees associated with the first request; a moduleconfigured to identify a first group of resources that meet the requestfor the first type of resource; a module configured to receive a secondrequest for a reservation for a second type of resource; a moduleconfigured to analyze constraints and guarantees associated with thesecond request; a module configured to identify a second group ofresources that meet the request for the second type of resource; and amodule configured to generate a co-allocation map between the firstgroup of resources and the second group of resources.
 39. The system ofclaim 38, further comprising a module configured to reserve resourcesaccording to the calculated co-allocation map.
 40. A compute-readablemedium storing instructions for controlling a computing device toco-allocate resources within a compute environment, the instructionscomprising: receiving a first request for a reservation for a first typeof resource; analyzing constraints and guarantees associated with thefirst request; identifying a first group of resources that meet therequest for the first type of resource; receiving a second request for areservation for a second type of resource; analyzing constraints andguarantees associated with the second request; identifying a secondgroup of resources that meet the request for the second type ofresource; and generating a co-allocation map between the first group ofresources and the second group of resources.
 41. The computer-readablemedium of claim 40, wherein the instructions further comprise reservingresources according to the calculated co-allocation map.
 42. A method ofco-allocating resources within a compute environment, the methodcomprising: receiving a first request for a reservation for a first typeof resource; analyzing constraints and guarantees associated with thefirst request; identifying a first group of resources that meet therequest for the first type of resource; receiving a second request for areservation for a second type of resource; analyzing constraints andguarantees associated with the second request; identifying a secondgroup of resources that meet the request for the second type ofresource; and generating a set of resources exclusive to at least one ofthe first request or the second request.
 43. The method of claim 42,wherein the first request may specify exclusivity.
 44. The method ofclaim 43, wherein if exclusivity is requested, the method comprisesguaranteeing that the first request will be able to reserve exclusiveresources.
 45. The method of claim 44, further comprising generating aco-allocation map between the first group of resources and the secondgroup of resources.